Lists

Lists

Interesting categorization. Top 10. Top 100. One of my son-in-laws said Rolling Stone peaked years ago, and all they’re good for now is making lists. Top 100 songs, singers, albums, etc., you’ve heard them all – whether it’s AFI or all the other credible institutions or people, everyone has lists. Only one, however, truly takes as much effort as novels, since that means you obviously have to read every one of them (not like a play, which you can watch, or anything else out there in the art world: painting, music, movies, theater, etc., – but a novel!) – you have to read all of them word for word in entirety! Not everyone on your list, but every other one out there, is literally a contender. And then rank them?

For, If upon reading Burt’s top 100, I find just one I think Confessions is better than, does that mean Confessions is, let’s say, 17 if I don’t think Absalom Absalom (17) ranks that high? Burt’s list is based not only on artistic merit but also on uniqueness and impact, which would explain books such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin (89), Dracula (97), and Gone With the Wind (100) – which are obviously not books of any great artistic merit. And impact takes time; obviously, it just takes time to see what that impact will be. “So here’s the little lady who started the big war.” Lincoln to Stowe. Uniqueness, however, is the opposite. It’s unique in the present, not necessarily the future – that’s where impact comes in. But uniqueness is something that characterizes most of the books on Burt’s list! So, from that perspective, could Confessions be ahead of all of them? Only time will tell.

Name another novel that has ever combined the “literary novel” with “art” organically – except for children’s books! Granted, graphic novels fall under the same symbiotic principle, but graphic novels are still far from true novels – Ulysses? Remembrance of Things Past? Catcher in the Rye? PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT? (although pornographers would love to try)

No, a novel on the scale of “literary” and an “art” book not only is a first – but then to make it all an organic extension of the story – the way Cabaret used music as opposed to your typical musicals of note?

“Good artists work within their chosen genre – great artists transform it!” – Barbara Hardy.